The 100 Best Movies You've Never Seen (20 page)

In October 2002 I asked Dennis Hopper to tell me what scared him the most. I expected the man who played Frank Booth in
Blue Velvet
, one of the screen's creepiest characters, to give me a deep psychological answer. Instead he said simply, “Being out of work.” This was coming from a man who is a Hollywood legend, having appeared in classics such as 1955's
Rebel Without a Cause
, 1969's
Easy Rider
, and 1979's
Apocalypse Now
, and continues to have a career as one of the screen's leading bad guys. Hopper is one of those Hollywood stories of great talent colliding head-on with a self-destructive streak a mile wide. His well-known drug habit earned him a reputation of being difficult, and even got him blacklisted in Hollywood for eight years. Despite his career ups and downs Hopper has made well over 100 movies, garnering two Academy Award nominations (for
Easy Rider
and
Hoosiers
) and winning a trophy case full of awards from international film festivals. He made his first film in 1954, but it wasn't until 1961 that he earned his first lead role.

In
Night Tide
(based on the Edgar Allen Poe poem
Annabel Lee
) he plays Johnny Drake, a charming young sailor who falls in love with Mora (Linda Lawson), a beautiful and mysterious woman who portrays a mermaid in a Santa Monica sideshow. As their love affair develops, Johnny learns more about her past — how she was found on a deserted island and became a sideshow attraction. Then he discovers some unnerving news. Two of Mora's previous boyfriends had disappeared, only to be found much later washed up on shore. The deaths were investigated, but no hard evidence was uncovered against Mora. Johnny is suspicious but blinded by love. When Mora tells him that “the seawater is in my veins, the tide pulls at my heart,” he begins to believe the rumors that the mermaid routine is not just an act, that she is descended from man-killing sirens who customarily murder during the cycle of the full moon.

Think of
Night Tide
as a sinister version of
Splash
without the laughs or the happy ending. While it wasn't a box office success upon its release, it did collect considerable critical acclaim, even making
Time
's Ten Best of the Year list, mostly because of director Curtis Harrington's moody handling of the material and Hopper's restrained, natural performance. In hindsight it's interesting to see a freshly scrubbed Hopper playing a nice guy after all the years he has spent playing psychos and drug-addled characters, but his performance goes beyond a mere novelty. Even though this is a genre picture with an unreal premise, Hopper plays it straight, and his enthusiasm feels very real. In one scene his gusto gets the best of him as he jumps for joy, balancing himself on a rail. It is a wonderful unforced moment that displays the childlike glee of his character. The story, strange though it may be, can't be described as a horror movie — there are no monsters or blood — but rather a psychological study that has more to do with
The Twilight Zone
than
The Creature from the Black Lagoon
. Long after the rubber-suited monsters from other films of that era have become camp nostalgia,
Night Tide
remains a seriously suspenseful story with lots of entertainment value.

Today I think of Charlton Heston as a gun totin' just-right-of-Attila-the-Hun caricature of the God-fearing super-patriot. But believe it or not, there was a time before he made it his crusade to put a gun in the hands of every man, woman, and child in the U.S. when he made movies. Some pretty good ones too. Perhaps you remember a little thing called
The Ten Commandments
. Or
Ben Hur
. Maybe
A Touch of Evil
. How about
The Agony and the Ecstasy
? In all he made over 120 movies, but there are three mid-career films that stand out from the pack.

In the late '60s and early '70s Heston made a trio of science-fiction movies in which he traded his period costumes, chariots, and religious epics for thoughtful, stirring, futuristic drama. The sci-fi trifecta begins with 1968's
Planet of the Apes
, continues with
The Omega Man
, and finishes with
Soylent Green
, a bizarre eco-cannibalism story. What sets these movies apart from modern science-fiction, or what passes for sci-fi on film, is that they are about ideas, not special effects and bombast.

My pick of the litter, 1971's
The Omega Man
, combines science-fiction, dark comedy, horror, and even a little blaxploitation. The source material, Richard Matheson's novella
I Am Legend
, is a page-turner about a man left alone in a world of vampires. Matheson was inspired to write the story after taking in a matinee of
Dracula
starring Bela Lugosi. “It occurred to me that if one vampire was frightening,” he said, “then a whole world of vampires
really
would be frightening.”

There have been two film adaptations of
I Am Legend
, both of which take substantial liberties with the original text.
The Last Man on Earth
(1964) sees a badly miscast Vincent Price as the eponymous hero, and disappointingly, changes the novella's ending, weakening the climax of the film. There are some genuinely creepy moments in the show, and the depiction of the zombie-like creatures seems to have been a template for George Romero's
Night of the Living Dead
movies, but this film pales in comparison to the 1971 retelling,
The Omega Man
.

In this film Charlton Heston plays Dr. Robert Neville, one of the few to survive an apocalyptic war fought with biological weapons. As a military scientist he was working on an antidote when the End came. By injecting himself with the only existing sample of the vaccine he was able to survive the bio-holocaust. The chemical combat may be over, but he is still at war. He has a new fight, a battle against a few hundred deformed, nocturnal people called The Family. They too survived the plague brought on by the chemical warfare, but just barely. Family members are sensitive to light, wear long black robes, and have an unquenchable thirst for blood.

Led by former newscaster Matthias (Anthony Zerbe), The Family hates Neville because he represents an old way of life, a life ruled by science and technology, the very things that brought about the apocalyptic war that turned them into blood-crazed zombies. Neville uses all his “old world” devices — electricity, machinery, and science — to ward off their attacks. Along the way he discovers that he is not the only person to outlive the chemical attacks.

The Omega Man
has the feel of a really elaborate
Twilight Zone
episode; both novella writer Richard Matheson and director Boris Sagal (father of
Married With Children
's Katey Sagal) were veterans of the television series. The only thing missing is the tight-jawed Rod Serling popping up to welcome us to another dimension at the beginning of the movie.

Like the television show,
The Omega Man
is thoughtfully crafted (even if it is a little ham-fisted at times) and, like the best
Twilight Zone
episodes, it bursts with social comment, in this case on racism and the dangers of irresponsible scientific research. There is even an interracial romance between Heston and Lisa (Rosalind Cash), a rare sight today on television and in movies, but even scarcer in 1971.

Sagal was a prolific director of episodic television who would occasionally take over the reigns on an Elvis movie or low-budget thriller when he wasn't making a mini-series or calling the shots on the sets of
Columbo
or
Ironside
. Like many of the creative types involved with the film, he wasn't an innovator, just a dependable craftsman. That might explain why
The Omega Man
doesn't have the visual flair of some of its innovative contemporaries like
A Clockwork Orange
or
The Andromeda Strain
.

While Sagal keeps up a vigorous pace, probably learned from directing hundreds of hours of network television, the action scenes are tepid. While they are not awful, they have a run-of-the-mill
Starsky and Hutch
quality. It's also fairly obvious that Heston didn't do his own stunts — check out his motorcycle driving stunt double, who doesn't look a thing like him. (Hey, if he is supposed to be the last man on Earth, who's driving the bike?)

Lackadaisical action scenes aside, it is bad dialogue that will usually sink a movie like this, and while there is some truly dreadful writing here, particularly in the scenes of Heston alone in his apartment, at least he seems to have a sense of humor about it. No actor wants to wander aimlessly around onscreen talking to himself, but as the last man on Earth (or so he thinks) he doesn't have much choice. Even for Heston, who was no stranger to over-the-top histrionics, it must have been difficult to deliver monologues to a bust of Caesar. “Hi, another day, another dollar. Miserable schmuck! Shut up! Why the hell can't you leave me alone?” he says to the statue. “What day is it anyway? Monday? Huh? The hell it is. It's Sunday. Sunday I always dress for dinner . . .” I'm not even sure Laurence Olivier could deliver those lines convincingly.

Heston has better luck later on when he meets Lisa. The back and forth between them has the makings of a camp classic. In one scene he tosses her a machine gun to ward off The Family. “What's this for?” she asks. “Comfort,” he gruffly replies. Much of Lisa's “hip” dialogue seems ripped from the pages of an anti-establishment blaxploitation script, particularly when she refers to Neville as “The Man . . . but he's cool.” Heard through today's ears the dated discourse has a retro charm that is part of the film's schlocky appeal.

Having said that, there is a lot to like about
The Omega Man
. Sagal's flashback scenes of the germ warfare are very effective and truly scary. He also takes good advantage of the deserted Los Angeles streets — the crew would shoot on location very early in the morning before people were on their way to work. The streets and buildings look lived in, but strangely barren, like something catastrophic has just happened.

The tension of the film is reinforced by veteran television composer Ron Grainer's music, a hauntingly atmospheric soundtrack that underscores the anxiety of the characters without detracting from the visuals.

The Omega Man
might seem hopelessly dated and kind of cheesy — I prefer to think of it as a time capsule of early '70s American Cold War paranoia — but it is also an effective cautionary tale about the stupidity of war and the dangers of using technology irresponsibly.

Peeping Tom
may be one of the most reviled films ever made. British director Michael Powell was a respected filmmaker, with the critically successful
A Matter of Life and Death
,
Black Narcissus
, and
The Red Shoes
on his resumé. The release of the voyeuristic
Peeping Tom
savaged his reputation, essentially ending his long and distinguished career in film. “The only really satisfactory way to dispose of
Peeping Tom
would be to shovel it up and flush it swiftly down the nearest sewer,” wrote Derek Hill in the
London Tribune
. “Even then, the stench would remain.” People hated this movie so much that one outraged critic approached screenwriter Leo Marks after a press screening angrily saying, “Don't do that again,” and even co-star Anna Massey called it “a horrible film to watch.” The film lasted in British theaters for less than a week before virtually disappearing. Two decades later, Martin Scorsese championed it in interviews, hailing it as a masterpiece.

Peeping Tom
is a deeply subversive movie that was years ahead of its time.

Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm) is a feature film focus puller with a deadly secret. In his off-hours he is a serial killer who films his victim's dying moments. He falls in love with Helen Stephens (Anna Massey), the daughter of his blind landlady, and reveals to her that he was the subject of cruel experiments by his psychologist father. The elder Lewis terrorized his son — dropping lizards on him while he slept and forcing him to grasp the hand of his deceased mother — and would film his reactions in the name of the study of fear.

Mark's unusual hobby is uncovered when he kills Vivian (Moira Shearer), on a deserted soundstage, shooting her final moments before hiding the body. When her corpse is discovered, Lewis films the horrified reactions of his co-workers. A police officer, Inspector Gregg (Jack Watson), makes the connection between the sadistic work of the well-known Dr. Lewis and the odd behavior of his son Mark, and puts a tail on him. That same night Lewis kills again, just as Helen finds the film of Vivian's murder. When she confronts him he tells her all the gruesome details as the police close in.

Ironically
Peeping Tom
would be considered a mainstream horror film today, the kind of film that Brian De Palma made early in his career, but in 1960 this subject matter really got under people's skin. Despite the fact this film showed less violence than another big hit that year, Alfred Hitchcock's
Psycho
,
Peeping Tom
's study of the relationship between voyeurism and cinema earned ire because it wasn't a morality tale. It doesn't present Lewis as a crazed homicidal maniac, but as a sympathetic character who may be redeemable. It's a sophisticated psychological journey that may have confused and confounded audiences looking for a neat and tidy package with no gray areas.

The use of color in a horror film may also have startled viewers. Most contemporary horror films of the era were shot in black and white, thereby distancing the audience from the real life threat presented onscreen. The lurid full color presentation of
Peeping Tom
may have seemed too real, too close to home.

Whatever the reason, this underrated classic was shelved by a nervous distributor, surfacing in a butchered cut two years later that earned better notices after a brief Parisian run, but failed at the box office. Director Michael Powell was blackballed in Britain following the release of the film, and although he later found work directing series television and a handful of independent features, his well-earned reputation as a major filmmaker was irrevocably damaged. A brief interest in Powell's work occurred in the '80s, fed by the praises of heavyweight fans Frances Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese. While he never again made important films, he did serve as senior director in residence at Zoetrope Studios and lectured at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. Virtually penniless at the time of his death in 1990, and his reputation in tatters, he never gave up hope of making another film. “He never became bitter,” said his wife Thelma Schoonmaker, “which I think is the greatest achievement in his life aside from his wonderful films.”